Morning baseball is nice.....but beer girls at 8:15am? As we took our seats in the VIP section of officialdom of the High School Baseball Federation, a couple of things were noticeable: firstly, Joanna was the ONLY female there - all others were older Japanese men; secondly, these seats were great!!!!! It is indeed nice to have contacts!!!! Life definitely is based not only upon what you know but who you know!!!!!!!!! Third, why were the beer girls coming to this section, which was not for the paying public but the guys involved who had to, by example, be alcohol-free? Fourth, without any sunblock, this morning was going to be brutal - the morning sun was so intense and I felt like a raw, Burger King Whopper being flame broiled in the sun!
Too bad I cannot transfer the pictures from my Leica to the iPad. Too good was my feeling that I was, perhaps, the only one with a non-Japanese camera amongst the 45,000 in attendance. Too sad am I that when I get home to Guangzhou, because of the internet restrictions, I will not be able to put the pictures on my website (that'll have to wait until the end of the month in Hong Kong).
And yet....I wouldn't have missed the opportunity to attend the opening ceremonies and first two games of this year's tourney. 47 prefectures.....with two teams each for Tokyo and Hokkaido (and the winning prefectural team from the rest of the prefectures). 49 teams in this year's event.
Going behind the scenes was a fantastic experience - the kids come first - physical trainers there to see that these young players stay healthy - stretching after the game and individual attention to all - especially the pitchers! Seeing the emotions - tears from the losers, shit eating grins on those victorious.....no corporate sponsors - this is purely amateur and not ' western-hypocritical'.
I have new found respect for how the Japanese treat baseball.........it was an experience that simply cannot be duplicated.
Too bad I cannot transfer the pictures from my Leica to the iPad. Too good was my feeling that I was, perhaps, the only one with a non-Japanese camera amongst the 45,000 in attendance. Too sad am I that when I get home to Guangzhou, because of the internet restrictions, I will not be able to put the pictures on my website (that'll have to wait until the end of the month in Hong Kong).
And yet....I wouldn't have missed the opportunity to attend the opening ceremonies and first two games of this year's tourney. 47 prefectures.....with two teams each for Tokyo and Hokkaido (and the winning prefectural team from the rest of the prefectures). 49 teams in this year's event.
Going behind the scenes was a fantastic experience - the kids come first - physical trainers there to see that these young players stay healthy - stretching after the game and individual attention to all - especially the pitchers! Seeing the emotions - tears from the losers, shit eating grins on those victorious.....no corporate sponsors - this is purely amateur and not ' western-hypocritical'.
I have new found respect for how the Japanese treat baseball.........it was an experience that simply cannot be duplicated.
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